Barely Holding On
by Stormy Grey Skies
Summary: I've been awake all this time, so why are you so afraid of opening my eyes? Murphy just wants Connor to admit the truth, both to himself and his brother. Connor can't say it out loud or he risks shattering the facade of 'everything's fine' with cold reality. Murph's never felt so cold. Oneshot, vaguest of vague allusions to possible twincest, minor implied character death.


"Nothing's wrong."

_Everything's wrong._

"We're fine."

_We're not fine._

"There's nothing to worry about."

_Neither of us have been able to get any sleep, except the kind that leaves you more tired than when you went to sleep._

It's always the same things. You've said them all, over and over again, like on top of everything you became a broken record two months ago. Two months since you gained too much responsibility and we both gained too much pain, but you refuse to admit anything's really changed. You smile reassuringly, but all I see is the stress and the weariness written in the lines around your eyes. You're too young to have those extra years etched into your face, but then again I'm too young to want to smooth them away with gentle kisses. You're just like Ma, there at the end, acting so strong when she was so weak.

I spent the last forty minutes on the phone with my friends. They don't know yet. I listened patiently and carefully, while my nails dug biting crescent valleys into the skin of my palms. It's funny how I never seemed to notice before how much they care about the stupidest little things. I plastered on a fake-happy face even though they couldn't see it and raged on the inside.

They think _they've _had a bad day? I don't know whether to laugh or cry, but I don't really know much of anything anymore.

I've taken all I can. I've had enough with the emptiness in your eyes frosting the spaces between us with bitter cold. Cold I should be used to, considering the lack of heat or insulation around here come wintertime, but one long look into your eyes still makes me shiver. At least in the wintertime I had your sleeping body to keep close to, and the warmth created between us that was better than any fancy heating system.

You're not okay.

I'm not okay either.

And we're definitely not _fine_.

I've been awake all this time, so why are you so afraid of opening my eyes?

My eyes are open, and they see all the things you wish I was blind to. The subtext beneath your words that tells me what you really mean, the things we both wish you could say out loud. Lies you swore you'd never tell me swarm through the halls every night like a sick hoard of killer bees buzzing in my ears and keeping me awake. I'm sick of you pretending you're all fine and dandy, when I can see how much you want to just give up. You probably would've one month and twenty-nine days ago, if you'd ever learned how to.

If she'd ever taught us.

I just wish you'd tell the truth.

It's time it's said.

You don't think I know. But you can't protect me from everything, and the notices have been staining our doorstep in a wave of red ink. Ma's medical bills took up almost everything we had. It's a surprise we've been able to drag ourselves onwards for this long, what with that missing arm and leg.

We lost the house.

It's all we had. You haven't told me yet, but I saw the letter. It's funny, really. The bank. They told us to pack up everything we had before they take what's theirs. The punchline is that we sold that everything to try and keep what we ended up losing anyway.

I think I'd rather sit in silence and listen to the heavy ticks of the big clock on the wall than hear empty reassurances swarm out of your mouth. You know how much I hate the sound of that old imposing timepiece. The one we can't sell off, because it's the one that's so ugly only two-year-old you could've fallen in love with it. I was too young to remember it, but I've heard the story so many times I'd swear up and down that I do, like it happened to me. You and your love that knows no boundaries.

You look different now than the face from my childhood. You've always been older, when we get right down to it we both know the truth, but you didn't seem like it. Capable, yes, more than the number of candles drawn on the birthday cards you'd stash in that old shoebox. But old? Never. You were only my older brother in the way that you'd tighten my backpack straps for me when they slipped, and carry it over your own shoulders when it was too heavy for mine.

It's my turn to do that now, but you've always been stubborn and though I don't need protecting you'll stand in front of me anyways, unbreakable barrier and everything. I wish you'd let me carry the backpack that's much too heavy for you now. You've aged years in weeks, brother, and I can't stand to see you slowly burn yourself out.

What about the life you saw living in the twinkle in your eye winking back at you through the mirror?

When did that spark die out?

What about the money you meticulously saved up, sacrificed your free time for?

You used to paint dreams of a fresh exciting start in lands far away from here in beautiful watercolor across the expanse of both our imaginations. Your technicolor dreams faded, I know, when you pulled out that cache and used it to buy food to put in both our stomachs.

You've got too much responsibility, and all I want is for you to share some with me. Like we used to share sweet treats or homework answers. You'd always lay claim to more problems than you could do at once and end up scowling at the paper. I giggled at your pain, then.

I ache for your pain, now.

There's no way out, or path back to the way things were. But you still have me, and we've always been there for each other, or are you starting to forget? You used to share everything with me, embarrassment or shame never coloring your cheeks. You knew I'd never judge or laugh, just like I knew you'd never waver in your support, even after telling you all my dirty little secrets. The purgatory between crawling under our covers and falling into blissful sleep was spent with moonlit streams of consciousness until our voices lulled each other to sleep. Now the silence is only broken by your politician platitudes and the sound of my spoon tapping gently against the chipped and faded plate.

The words slip out of my mouth unbidden, and I watch them hit you dead in the center of your chest, make you stop dead in the middle of the next meaningless word.

"I wish you'd just tell me what we both already know."

The words hang in the empty air, suspended on the breath I hold in wait.

I see you hesitate. I watch it choke up in your throat, catch itself on its way out of your mouth. They say the truth will set you free. I'd take a ray of sunshine peeking in through the bars of the cage or a whisper of a breeze lifting the hair from my face.

You plaster on a smile, fake like the diamond in the ring our Pa gave our Ma all those ages ago.

"There's nothing wrong."

_We're can't hold on any longer._

You make me want to scream, cry, or maybe just laugh.

I just get up and walk away.


End file.
